Melee range is too big

[xfejiou5]

I can get hit from what feels like metres away and can hit people from metres away. I have 500 hours in the game and I love coming back each alpha to see what's changed, but since this change was made I can't get more than a few days in before I have to stop playing. It's so unrealistic and unenjoyable. Please restore the old melee range.

[Ac75]

it was like, in effort to make their game harder in some weird way, the devs definitely extended the range of “contact” far past the animation

 

- it’s absolutely stunning that game with this much money raised still has very fundamental problems, like collision detection

[The Batman]

Once you get the hang of it. You can calculate the swing and move in the exact point when it hits without getting hit at all.

However, running zombies have crazy messed up hitboxes. I feel like 50% of the time when I swing at a runner it just doesn't detect the hitbox at all while I keep getting hit.

[CommonOddity]

Yeah, but it feels like the range is still busted compared to what it used to be. I know that people used to backpedal in such a way as to avoid ever getting hit unless dealing with a feral... But what is in place right now feels as if it gimps the experience for melee players tremendously.

 

Almost forces you to go ranged.

[Ac75]

It’s utterly borked since A16 and worse in 18 than 17

 

This is is a collision detection issue guys, and A18’s collision detection is very PlayStation 1 era = you can get “hit” far beyond the box of the animation

 

And that’s what’s happening here - incredibly terribly coded collision detection - there’s no defending it, you literally can take a hit a great distance beyond an animation

[Ac75]

Yeah, but it feels like the range is still busted compared to what it used to be. I know that people used to backpedal in such a way as to avoid ever getting hit unless dealing with a feral... But what is in place right now feels as if it gimps the experience for melee players tremendously.

 

Almost forces you to go ranged.

 

The devs are seemingly finding ways to use the current system and keep tweaking it and instead of fixing anything, they’ve done the exact opposite and started gimping mechanics like “can’t sprint backwards” and next was making the hit detection far more sloppy as if it’s it going to make the game more of a challenge

 

Please don’t give me a “challenge” by borking pre-existing mechanics - that’s not good game design, that’s just moving the goalposts with “forever in Alpha” in mind - it’s obvious at this point

[Ac75]

Wow

 

No one cares that the hits happen far beyond the range of the animation??

 

in 2020 after millions of dollars raised, that doesn’t bother anyone else?

[RestInPieces]

It does. Hit animations, detection, feedback and reaction are a huge turn off for most people I've shown the game to. Combat is the last thing I usually mind in games, but it's very prominent here and it's a shame if they don't try to improve it. MM gave the impression that they want to leave it as is -- hopefully they will be convinced otherwise.

[Buttson]

I've seen a mod that reduces zombies attack range by 25%. can't remember the name of it tho. Maybe you'd like that?

[xfejiou5]

I've seen a mod that reduces zombies attack range by 25%. can't remember the name of it tho. Maybe you'd like that?

Would be great if it was configurable and could also be applied to the player.

[Scyris]

Once you get the hang of it. You can calculate the swing and move in the exact point when it hits without getting hit at all.

However, running zombies have crazy messed up hitboxes. I feel like 50% of the time when I swing at a runner it just doesn't detect the hitbox at all while I keep getting hit.

 

Oh yeah that is very true, even in single player it happens a ton, I generally aim for body shots with power attacks on runners, as hitting their head is usually hard to do with how they move their head like a bobblehead. Even so i've had sledgehammer power attacks go right thru their torso and hit the zombie behind it. There is a sync issue there for sure and its not just in multiplayer. I blame it on the fact they made melee weapons act like basically short range guns. Melee was deff bettwen in a16 imo in terms of hitting things, yeah you had to aim up, but at least it was much easier to land blows.

[Laz Man]

Aside from sleeper zombies doing a funky swing when getting up, have had no issues with avoiding hits in melee.

 

As a side note, I do feel the range to hit zombies is farther then it should be. Perhaps the same was applied to zeds.

 

Also, sledges feel like I'm wielding a thinner object as its face to easy to miss the mark when aiming for a zeds bobbing head.

 

All in all, at least faatal has acknowledged some improvements can still be made which hopefully will address most people's sensibilities.

[Silverjohn]

I'm just back to the game as well and I've only really noticed this issue with the one handed clubs.  With knives you definitely have to get a lot closer.  I'm wondering if they gave the clubs a longer reach because they share a perk with the baseball bat which would, logically, have a longer reach.

As for fists and sledges I haven't really used them enough to comment but spears seem to have a pretty short reach for what they'd be capable of.  If there are any old school Morrowind fans the reach on the spears in that game was more realistic.  A bit overpowered maybe but spears are pretty overpowered in the real world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afqhBODc_8U

 

[Ti2xGr]

We have used/tested two modlets that adjust the range. We ended up using Meancloud_enemyreachshortener. It seems to give reasonable reach adjustment for the zombies. https://7daystodiemods.com/enemy-reach-shortener/. It is server-side only

[Roland]

Please follow @faatal here on the forums. He has already in the dev diary recently explained the overlarge melee range and also talked about how it is on his to-do list. You can spin your wheels here listening to people bitter about the long development time, boggled by the concept of priorities, and snide about the millions of dollars earned or you can start reading the dev who is going to be polishing this portion of the game up soon.  faatal usually posts exactly what he is working on and how he is going about it . The new forums have a great follow function so use it and get notified whenever faatal has something to say.

[Dabeeto]

On 2/23/2020 at 6:54 AM, The Batman said:

Once you get the hang of it. You can calculate the swing and move in the exact point when it hits without getting hit at all.

However, running zombies have crazy messed up hitboxes. I feel like 50% of the time when I swing at a runner it just doesn't detect the hitbox at all while I keep getting hit.

Unity has a performance problem with fast moving objects and their built-in collision detection.  There's two setting, one that has the problem you described, and the other having the problem that it's a HUGE performance hit.  Multiply that across zombies, and it's not-feasible.

The solution is a complicated melee raycast system.  I say "complicated" because it usually requires a lot of trigonometry and fancy tricks to get the raycasting to match up to the weapon's location (and nothing extra), and strange weapon shapes all have to be adjusted for (such as an axe head vs a spear).   It's totally doable, but represents a large amount of work just to get it sort of functioning, and even more work to get it to feel right.  Of course, this is the right thing for the game to do (eventually).  

AFAIK, there's no good way to get Unity's mesh colliders to function well with fast moving objects.  

[CrainBramp]

22 hours ago, Ti2xGr said:

We have used/tested two modlets that adjust the range. We ended up using Meancloud_enemyreachshortener. It seems to give reasonable reach adjustment for the zombies. https://7daystodiemods.com/enemy-reach-shortener/. It is server-side only

Just wanted to say thanks for this. Have been using JaxTeller's wonderful ZombieHandAdustment, but this seems to work better for our MP server. It's just little community tips like this that make me smile. Thanks.

[Voldiir]

So you're saying... You want to have to be CLOSER to zombies before missing with a sledgehammer?